San Diego Comic Con 2017 – Additional Leader Dragonstorm Images

The majority of the fun for the Transformers brand at SDCC 2017 is over, but we still have a handful of images left to check out! Our news crew has gone back to snap some pics of the highly-anticipated Leader Dragonstorm from the Transformers The Last Knight movie line. Here you can see the two robots that form the three-headed dragon standing behind them, and get a bit of an idea of scale as movie masterpiece Bumblebee stands just a few inches away.

Took this pic at SDCC but can't find anything on it. It the Takara version on PowerMaster Prime but the Hasbro rep said if they are displaying it then they will be releasing it. Any word on the release date?

No, that's the actual boxset version. The Takara version has a white and red crotch.

Took this pic at SDCC but can't find anything on it. It the Takara version on PowerMaster Prime but the Hasbro rep said if they are displaying it then they will be releasing it. Any word on the release date?

Took this pic at SDCC but can't find anything on it. It the Takara version on PowerMaster Prime but the Hasbro rep said if they are displaying it then they will be releasing it. Any word on the release date?

The reason they didn't make Beast combiners is there was only 6 waves of Combiner Wars planned. They budget the figures based on how many times the mold is reused/retooled, if you used beasts half the characters wouldn't have been made (no Autobot cars means no Stunticons/Streetwise/First Aid therefore no Defensor either, & so on)

Either way you have some combiners missing, & at least this way you get the first 4 scramble city combiners & Devastator done straight away. Computron was pretty much an afterthought over here, & even then lots complained he was half-@$$ed.

Now special colour editions of Abominus/Predaking are great, but how many people will really buy them? You'll always get more money from new characters, & you saw how heavily discounted the G2 sets were (they never even released Defensor they did so poorly!) Even now I see the special edition Computron & Liokaiser on discount, so box sets don't seem to sell the greatest here.

I'd have loved Predaking/Abominus etc back then, but there was no way we could get that much new tooling in a line unfortunately. If we're lucky most of them will get done this time though!

Yeah, I mentioned how the cars could be re-used, so they got priority. BUT, you forget that Hasbro thinks that cars and planes are generally more popular with kids, too… so there's that.

With special color releases? It depends. If it's a popular character, you can release him in puke and crap, and it sells (i.e. Optimus). The G2 sets had trouble selling for special reasons: for one thing, they were expensive AND they were hard to find locally (if at all). That, to me, is a bad comparison because they were special sets.

If you sold the G2 Stunticons separately, for example, you might have seen more sales. Lots more impulse buys at $14.99; not so much with $99.99. At $99.99 it was easy to skip the entire set – plus, did you not notice how many collectors split up their box sets and sent a good chunk of them to eBay or trades? So really bad example, those G2 sets. (They sold quickly when they hit discounters at $40, so price was a big factor, NOT color).

But it's like you said, they did the cars, so now they have room for the monster/beast bots. But don't be so hasty to defend some of these poor decisions: "How could Hasbro know that making HEADMASTERS would be successful????" is something you could have read on here ten years ago. I'm sick and tired of all of the excuses afforded to Hasbro. The data is available, but they don't care. Hasbro sells to KIDS, not collectors. The Generation line has been UBER SUCCESSFUL, and I think Hasbro is honestly surprised by this. They are ignorant and are not dedicated to their core customers – they want to sell to the larger group of non-customers (it's a common corporate strategy – look at the Nintendo Wii!).

I could have told you HMs would work. Lots of people could have told you that. But they waited how long to revisit this? So when we talk about Beast combiners, it's NOT okay to say they can't be repainted. You don't know. You don't have a good grasp of how well these things could sell! We wouldn't know until Hasbro took a good swing – and now we're talking CW Computron vs CW Devastator. Done right? Predaking and Abominus could be another BIG success story for TFs and Hasbro. As could PRETENDERS.

Because frankly, mining that 80s pool of great ideas is the only way Hasbro will come up with a cool gimmick that doesn't rely on stupid springs or some other awful thing. To their credit, ANYTHING Hasbro engineers now is typically superior to any older toy (in terms of articulation), so no matter what toy you currently own, there's a good chance you'll replace it with a modern version (were Hasbro to revisit that character). And most of all, the success of these current Generations lines confirms what I've been saying for years: STOP SPAMMING OPTIMUS AND BB! FOCUS ON SOME OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS!!!!!

Am I the only one who absolutely digs that Starscream look? The proportions are so cartoony and comic-y that it works to me. Very interested in the figure. Besides, this is the first time Hasbro has given him the nice big shoulder pauldrons in a while.

Only one problem, when was the last time we got a Deluxe Megatron, it's like there's a rule against it. Also the first Megatron is likely to be Beastwars Meg's. Yep I'd rather have classic style one too but, I think it's more likely classics Megatron would be a voyager. I hope I'm wrong.

Only one problem, when was the last time we got a Deluxe Megatron, it's like there's a rule against it. Also the first Megatron is likely to be Beastwars Meg's. Yep I'd rather have classic style one too but, I think it's more likely classics Megatron would be a voyager. I hope I'm wrong.

Right now we only know Rodimus and Primal will be in the leader class and all leaders will have the power armor gimmick. As for Decepticons that could utilize the gimmick, Thunderwing comes to mind.

How about Super/Ultra Megatron from Battlestars/Return of Convoy?

You get a jet & tank mode (no gun, bonus for being released over here!) & could easily call one form Megatronus or something then Megatron rather than stick to these names.

He's Optimus's counterpart when Japan reintroduced him as Star Convoy (who's been suggested for this line too), he's still G1 & never had a toy before. You know there'll be an Optimus & Megatron released at some point in this line, why not make it one they've never done before?

If you're creative you can even do it as a remold of Thunderwing (jet/tank), it doesn't need to look exactly like the pictures.

Might indeed be a piece that is a h/f/chest armor. Bit tacky but o well. It seems they don't want to give away too much info.Also the Hotrod-Rodimus trick will be redone for ultra magnus as well as Orion pax-Optimus prime.I wonder which cons would have that.

But what I'm really wondering about is combiners like Predaking and Abominus. They missed the beast combiners entirely… I wonder why they didn't want to do them? I guess because they could spam the jets and cars into a number of characters… but that kind of economic thinking ruins a line. They should have made less repaints and spent that money on at least ONE of those combiners.Then they could release special color editions of Predaking or Abominus, and recoup some of the money that way. Ehhhh… one day.

The reason they didn't make Beast combiners is there was only 6 waves of Combiner Wars planned. They budget the figures based on how many times the mold is reused/retooled, if you used beasts half the characters wouldn't have been made (no Autobot cars means no Stunticons/Streetwise/First Aid therefore no Defensor either, & so on)

Either way you have some combiners missing, & at least this way you get the first 4 scramble city combiners & Devastator done straight away. Computron was pretty much an afterthought over here, & even then lots complained he was half-@$$ed.

Now special colour editions of Abominus/Predaking are great, but how many people will really buy them? You'll always get more money from new characters, & you saw how heavily discounted the G2 sets were (they never even released Defensor they did so poorly!) Even now I see the special edition Computron & Liokaiser on discount, so box sets don't seem to sell the greatest here.

I'd have loved Predaking/Abominus etc back then, but there was no way we could get that much new tooling in a line unfortunately. If we're lucky most of them will get done this time though!

Very excited now that I have that inkling of an idea! They outright said that they had "easter eggs" they weren't revelling now, so much like CW Optimus's surprise reveal, i'm guesing they are saving this full reveal for their own con…

I also hope the deluxe guys extra parts CAN be either a hand OR foot for a combiner…

ALSO… second chance for "shuttle" Blast Off anyone???? Make it happen hasbro! You have the mold so it costs you nothing!!!

I hope they do keep the combining gimmick, because it does open up the chance for releasing toys like Blast Off! Nice call!

But what I'm really wondering about is combiners like Predaking and Abominus. They missed the beast combiners entirely… I wonder why they didn't want to do them? I guess because they could spam the jets and cars into a number of characters… but that kind of economic thinking ruins a line. They should have made less repaints and spent that money on at least ONE of those combiners.Then they could release special color editions of Predaking or Abominus, and recoup some of the money that way. Ehhhh… one day.

I'm too confused to be excited. These slides invite more questions than answers… and I really wish we could have seen something more cohesive or intelligible. But this might be as intelligible as Hasbro gets: the TR line did a poor job of conveying the HM system and its compatibility across all the different scales. I think they should have paid for some display cases to show kids you could swap Megatron and Optimus's heads. And show them some of the fun fan modes where Skullcruncher could turn into a base or combine into a gestalt walker of some sort.

This new series looks to be even more confusing, imo. No doubt, we will grasp the ins and outs soon enough, but I worry the majority of kids/parents will not understand how all these things work. Too complex = lost audience = diminished sales. Which is a shame, because the TR toys were a lot more fun (and easier) to transform than some of the previous releases (so they're very kid accessible, imo). Is there any way to suggest to Hasbro that they take more care in presenting the new line?

Very excited now that I have that inkling of an idea! They outright said that they had "easter eggs" they weren't revelling now, so much like CW Optimus's surprise reveal, i'm guesing they are saving this full reveal for their own con…

I also hope the deluxe guys extra parts CAN be either a hand OR foot for a combiner…

ALSO… second chance for "shuttle" Blast Off anyone???? Make it happen hasbro! You have the mold so it costs you nothing!!!

Look at the pics from the panel. When they show the "toy ecosystem" and how the 'prime masters' attach to the various classes the piece Jazz has on his chest clearly has a CW style thumb on Jazz's left side. And Starscream has 2 large black shoulder pieces to hold the prime masters on his shoulders (seen better in the official pics) that are clearly WAAAAY overdesigned to just hold 'masters. View attachment 27771151

SO my thought is that the deluxes may not have "hand/foot/guns" but "prime master chest armor/ combiner hands" and the voyagers have "prime master bandoleers (Hasbro's term they used in the panel)/ combiner feet".

Sounds good… I guess? Are you excited???

I'm too confused to be excited. These slides invite more questions than answers… and I really wish we could have seen something more cohesive or intelligible. But this might be as intelligible as Hasbro gets: the TR line did a poor job of conveying the HM system and its compatibility across all the different scales. I think they should have paid for some display cases to show kids you could swap Megatron and Optimus's heads. And show them some of the fun fan modes where Skullcruncher could turn into a base or combine into a gestalt walker of some sort.

This new series looks to be even more confusing, imo. No doubt, we will grasp the ins and outs soon enough, but I worry the majority of kids/parents will not understand how all these things work. Too complex = lost audience = diminished sales. Which is a shame, because the TR toys were a lot more fun (and easier) to transform than some of the previous releases (so they're very kid accessible, imo). Is there any way to suggest to Hasbro that they take more care in presenting the new line?

Look at the pics from the panel. When they show the "toy ecosystem" and how the 'prime masters' attach to the various classes the piece Jazz has on his chest clearly has a CW style thumb on Jazz's left side. And Starscream has 2 large black shoulder pieces to hold the prime masters on his shoulders (seen better in the official pics) that are clearly WAAAAY overdesigned to just hold 'masters. View attachment 27771151

SO my thought is that the deluxes may not have "hand/foot/guns" but "prime master chest armor/ combiner hands" and the voyagers have "prime master bandoleers (Hasbro's term they used in the panel)/ combiner feet".

Might indeed be a piece that is a h/f/chest armor. Bit tacky but o well. It seems they don't want to give away too much info. Also the Hotrod-Rodimus trick will be redone for ultra magnus as well as Orion pax-Optimus prime. I wonder which cons would have that.